Du Plessis (2021) defines curriculum decolonization as the disruption of a Euro-centric mindset and the challenging of ideas of meritocracy that have benefited some individuals in education and society. According to Abdi (2012:12), decolonizing educational practices disrupt “the structural as well as the functional coherence of official knowledge and learning discourses and their selectively dysfunctional scribbling of totalizing Euro-centric metanarratives”. The removal of curriculum practices, values, norms, practices, ways of thinking, beliefs, and decisions that constitute the educational system that is Euro-centric rather than Afro-centric is thus referred to as curriculum decolonization from an African perspective.The goal of curriculum decolonization is to prevent African universities, schools, and colleges from merely becoming regional outposts of former occupiers by substituting indigenous thinkers and African authors with context irelevant and pointless works from Europe or the global North. When a curriculum calls for decolonization, it signifies that the curriculum was created using colonizers’ methods. Instead of serving the needs of the people (the colonized), the curriculum suited the plans and requirements of the colonizer. Like many other African nations, South Africa was colonized, and the colonizers gave most South Africans a subpar educational system that did not prepare them for independence and freedom. The curriculum was designed to produce cooperative citizens, not independent people, it was designed to produce employees, not employers and it was designed to produce economic passengers, not economic drivers. This publication intends to explore the language aspect of curriculum decolonization.
Mahabeer (2018) contends that in order to modify and decolonize the curriculum, one must consider the curriculum’s relevance to their setting and their own perspective of themselves and others. This argument brings up the topic of curriculum relevance, which is observed in the teaching and learning languages as well as other languages used in school systems. The South African Department of Education should reconsider reevaluating the language issues associated with the majority of learners(Africans) in public schools, especially the previous “Model C” institutions located in metropolitan areas. After English Home Language (HL), Afrikaans is a required First Additional Language (FAL) in these schools and in other instances, Afrikaanse is a home language. The indirectly forced inclusion of Afrikaans in the curriculum continues to be debatable. This debate emanates from the fact that English, rather than Afrikaans, is used by many nations with diverse languages, such as Fiji, Venezuela, Singapore, Uruguay, etc., to interact with the outside world. Given that the majority of learners in these schools are black African children, it is puzzling that Afrikaans is a compulsory First Additional Language(FAL) that must be intentionally imposed on the majority of learners who happen to be in these former “Model C” schools. For relevance purposes and the benefit of the majority of learners there should be a variety of languages (FAL) to choose from rather than just Afrikaans as the only option. That is the first curriculum decolonization that the Personalized Education Curriculum System (PECS) seeks to address – Afrikaanse should be alongside many other languages as the option for FAL, otherwise this has always displayed an impression of imposition.
Language plays a prominent role in the development of personal, social and cultural identity. Students with a strong foundation in their first language often display a deeper understanding of themselves and their place within society in addition to an increased sense of well-being and confidence. Naturally, this filters down into every aspect of their lives, including their academic achievement (Odora-Hoppers and Pinar 2017). That is why learners in public schools should be given an opportunity to reasonably choose from African indigenous languages. Amongst other languages learners can choose from are international languages such as Portuguese, French, Spanish etc. These languages are crucial for conducting business with other nations and for finding employment abroad. English is the lingua franca in many African nations and has earned itself the title “Universal language”. Afrikaans on the other hand, as Solloway(2019) reveals that remains the language only spoken in two countries in the African continent which supports the argument raised here that it should not be a compulsory FAL strategically imposed on learners as it is the case currently. which calls into question the planned addition of Afrikaans to the curriculum in South Africa. The youth of 1976 fought this battle before. Since Swahili is one of the African languages that is widely spoken in many African nations, its adoption in schools would be crucial for bringing Africans together and preserving inter-African connections. For this reason, PECS deems it crucial that African languages receive more weight in our curriculum than Afrikaans. The Basic Education Minister, Angie, alluded to the same curriculum decolonization that this publication is calling for (BusinessTech, 2019), which is in agreement with this publication argument.
According to Knaus & Brown (2017), efforts to decolonize curriculum must immediately take into account the lack of African content that is evident when schools in a nation like South Africa teach their learners material that is foreign to them, such as from American or British literature that has little relevance or contextual congruence to traditional or contemporary South African populations. While foreign Shakespearean plays and poetry are subtly introduced in schools where the bulk of students are African, African literature remains untouched and shelved. This calls into doubt the relevancy factor. Yes, there are now a few African books and poems taught in schools, but the foreign literature still predominates and raises many problems and worries.
It is for arguments such as these that prompted the conceiving of the Personalized Education Curriculum System (PECS) as a curriculum system strictly rooted in humanistic approach, quality curriculum theory aspects, foundations of competency- oriented education, and focused on practically assessing students for relevant skills, aptitudes, and values to maneuver modern-day society successfully. PECS was developed to be at the forefront of curriculum relevance issues like curriculum decolonization and many others. Just like the birth of postmodernism, PECS is the product of dissatisfaction with the modernist curriculum system in South Africa. PECS is meant to rescue learners from the monstrous curriculum that fails to implement progressivism and provide differentiated learning that suits all learners. Just like progressivism in the past, PECS is a disruptive and qualitative curriculum system that aims to end the confusion around the inconsistencies of the curriculum. PECS seeks to restore the value and dignity of our education system by making it responsive to the needs of society through the liberal education-based curriculum system. PECS aims to give learners the opportunity to gain an insight into the world of work during their school years. This makes PECS unique and highly relevant in inspiring the education community of our country, South Africa, and Africa as a whole. And we believe that the education system can be improved in this way.
Know more about PECS: https://simnandisolutions.co.za/personalized-education/
– Click on PECS PowerPoint presentation.
Please answer these 3 questions and submit them: https://simnandisolutions.co.za/pecs – Questionnaires
Cite this publication: XABA, S.S. 2023. Curriculum decolonization: towards basic education language redress. https://simnandisolutions.co.za/post/
Bibliography
Knaus C. B. and Brown M. C. 2017. The absence of indigenous African higher education: Contextualising whiteness, post-apartheid racism and intentionality. Advances in Education in Diverse Communities: Research, Policy and Praxis, 14, 263–288.
Odora-Hoppers, Catherine, and Pinar, W. 2017. The decolonisation of South African schooling: “Looking back, looking forward”, 3-12. National Education Collaboration Trust: Education Dialogue SA.
BusinessTech, 2019. Minister wants to ‘decolonise’ education in South Africa.BusinessTech, 22 Jan. https://businesstech.co.za/news/lifestyle/294654/minister-wants-to-decolonise-education-in-south-africa/
Du Plessis, P. 2021. Decolonisation of Education in South Africa: Challenges to Decolonise the University Curriculum. South African Journal of Higher Education 35 (1), 54-69. https://doi.org/10.20853/35-1-4426
Solloway, H. 2019. A brief history of the Afrikaans. https://www.academia.edu/40384124/A_Brief_History_of_the_Afrikaans_Language. Date of Access: 20 August 2023